


code of conduct

by limned



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Mind Control, Post-Battle of New York (Marvel), Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 19:49:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10669587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/limned/pseuds/limned
Summary: Clint doesn’t know why Article III stuck like that.  It shouldn’t have.





	code of conduct

On the smallest thread, two things echoed in his mind under Loki’s blue ice.

_(if I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available)_

_(Natasha)_

.

Clint doesn’t know why Article III stuck like that. It shouldn’t have. He didn’t learn it as a wide-eyed eighteen-year-old military recruit. He heard it for the first time during an interminable briefing at S.H.I.E.L.D. training, surrounded by quite a few people who did learn it as naïve recruits, most of whom promptly broke into an argument with the instructor about the exact meaning of the code and how the fuck you were supposed to take that shit seriously when the higher-up who wrote it hadn’t had _his_ goddamn fingernails peeled off in a Chinese POW camp, thank you very much.

.

_(if I am captured)_

It worked for the first time when he didn’t shoot Fury in the head, and when he deflected two kill shots on Hill, and for the last and most important time when he shifted his weight just enough

_(I WILL CONTINUE TO RESIST)_

so she could flip him and send his head crashing into the rail, and then

_(NATASHA)_

the second thing roared straight through the ice and she sent him gratefully down into blackness.

.

He was shaky in the restraint room and couldn’t remember most of what he said. The important part was when she sat down close and looked straight at him. That carried him through the rest of it.

.

After the insanity they took Stark’s offer of an empty apartment on an undamaged floor. They didn’t make it any farther than the ridiculously huge couch in the living room when Clint pulled her down and wrapped himself around her and just breathed, dust and sweat and explosive residue, Natasha’s arms tight around his shoulders and her cheek pressed against his forehead, and let himself believe that he’d tried hard enough.


End file.
